Thunderstorm over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Ormond Beach, Florida. Taken by Jason Weingart.*

I’ve been thinking about this post for a year now and I still am not sure I can properly convey my experience the night that we sailed back from the Bahamas. After pulling into Grand Cay and taking stock of the up-coming weather, Dan and I quickly realized that we needed to make a choice quickly. That night and the next day were expected to be calm sailing and low waves for the crossing back to Florida but after that we were seeing 2 solid weeks of high wind and waves. We made the decision to head out at once to get back to the States and pulled up anchor before we ever set foot on the island.

We set our course for the Fort Pierce inlet, had some dinner and settled-in for a long night of motoring. The water was glassy and there was not a hint of wind from any direction. Dan took the first watch while I put Carter to bed and tried to get a couple hours of sleep in spite of the rumbling engine. When I woke up and went out, I could tell right away that Dan was not happy. A huge line of thunderclouds had appeared on the swiftly-disappearing horizon.

Typically, Dan loves watching a storm (evidenced by our pictures and video from the inside of a tropical storm at anchor) but the idea of getting struck by lightning in the middle of nowhere on a windless night was really starting to worry him. However, as we were too far from land to outrun the storm or anchor, the only real option was to keep moving and hope that we weren’t struck. (If we had been, we did have back-ups by means of secondary GPS items and physical charts, but we still weren’t relishing the idea of replacing all of our charts or especially the possibility of the engine dying in a strike and stranding us until the wind picked back up.) Dan went down to try to sleep after I assured him that I would wake him if anything serious happened.

Being on a boat at night is very different than during the day. The only light was from the stars and our running lights. The water was still glassy and the wind hadn’t picked-up. It was as if nothing in the world existed in that moment other than our boat and the water. And then came the lightning.

It’s hard for me to put into words the majesty of those few hours I spent watching the storms. One moment, everything was blackness, the entire world consumed by the inky shroud of night and in a single instant the entire sky would be lit up to reveal a monstrous wall of towering clouds stretching the entire width of the horizon in front of us. The dance of lightning strikes jumping from one cloud to another and down to the water’s surface was breath-taking, awe-inspiring, and terrifying all at once. At that moment, more than any other in my life, I was overpowered with reverence for the forces on this planet and the One who created them.

We eventually made it through with no damage to ourselves or our boat by early the next morning and motored through the rest of a calm day to safely enter Fort Pierce inlet, our trip to the Bahamas officially complete. However, those few hours touched my soul in a way that I am pretty confident I will never forget.

*While I was too in awe (and afraid of ruining our camera in the pouring rain) to take any pictures, this picture is the closest image I could find to what it looked like that night.

As I mentioned in my over-due post last week, Horizon is currently for sale in Indiantown, Florida. We’ve listed her with Advantage Yachts for $39,000, which is a great deal considering all of the awesome upgrades that she comes with! Here are a few posts that highlight what’s gone into making her live-aboard ready:

With tons of interior space, 2 cabins, 2 heads, and very good headroom for a boat of this age, it was an awesome home for the three of us at dock and at anchor. We hope to be able to pass her on to someone looking for an amazing adventure of their own! If you or someone you know might be interested, contact us or visit our YachtWorld.com listing.

So…for those of you out there who can do some simple math, it’s been 11 months since my last post. A lot can happen in 11 months and a lot HAS happened since our time in the Hub of Abaco. While I will be revisiting the end of our Bahamas adventure, I had to restart my posts somewhere so I’ll start with a little explanation of where we are today. Many apologies to those of you (there were quite a few!) who were following along with our trip and weren’t sure whether we met a watery end after not hearing from us for a while.

Let me start by saving that we loved our few months of cruising and have absolutely zero regrets about the whole process. The costs were all worth the journey and it was an amazing time together as a family. The water was beautiful, the people were incredible, and we learned a lot about ourselves and each other in a short period of time. The Bahamas will always hold a very special place in our hearts.

However, I’m sure you can hear the “BUT” in my words above. Those of you who have spoken to us recently know that we have settled back into land life and are selling Horizon. There are a lot of reasons why we believed this to be the best choice for us, but here are the big ones:

Cruising is a lonely business. I’m not going to lie, I did not expect loneliness to be an issue for Dan and I. We generally are pretty independent people who aren’t big on crowds. Also, there were generally people around to have great conversation with, cruisers and locals alike. People always talked about how quickly you make amazing friends while cruising, which is SO true, but they somehow forget to mention how quickly you sail away from those friends as well. That constant cycle in just the year and half we lived on our boat moving between marinas and cruising was a lot tougher all three of us than we had ever considered.

This one goes together with number 1, but has to be its own reason. Carter was lonely. Our social butterfly does great with adults, but he thrives with other kids to play with. If it was hard for us to say good-bye to new friends, for him it was like ripping his heart out. As a child of parents who moved every few years, I just couldn’t bear to watch him go through the good-bye process every couple of weeks. It was hard for us to weigh this against the benefit of cruising for him and us as a family, but this one was definitely a major factor.

Carter and I both got seasick…a lot. Short trips were fine but throw in any kind of waves and more than a few hours and all bets were off. This made for a lot of discomfort for Carter and I and plenty of lonely hours at the wheel for Dan. The prospect of sailing farther than the Bahamas in this state just wasn’t super appealing for any of us.

Finally, there wasn’t a particular call for Dan and I to keep going. That may sound like a lame reason to stop, but for us it just made sense. Cruising is not something that we felt like we could keep doing just for the sake of doing it. It is an amazing life-style, but it could be a nightmare if you went into it without enthusiasm.

Will we ever go cruising again? There’s a good chance we will. Or maybe next time we’ll try out an RV or go backpacking across Europe. Honestly, we don’t know. What we do know is that living on Horizon was one of the best things that we have ever decided to do and we wouldn’t change one thing about it.

After spending most of our first few weeks in the secluded islands of the Exuma Cays, we were all ready for a little more human contact. We had been told by fellow cruisers not to miss Hopetown and Marsh Harbour, so we were interested to find out if the Abaco Islands lived up to the hype.

The crystal blue water was dotted with these ominous black circles. Do Not Hit!

Before we could start having fun however, we had to make the trek to get there! Our first day from Ship’s Channel Cay to Royal Harbour took us through the Middle Passage, a path filled with coral heads that had to be dodged if we didn’t plan on leaving our boat at the bottom of the bank. I stayed on the bow for almost 2 hours directing Dan around the large black/brown spots on the otherwise crystal blue water. As the saying goes: if it’s brown, you’re going down! Our next day up to Little Harbour was one of the bumpiest we’ve had so far, with 4-5 foot seas on the beam rolling in from the open Atlantic, aka a seasickness party for Carter and me.

The lighthouse is still operated manually and open for self-guided tours every day.

Our first major stop in the Abaco Islands was Hopetown, Abaco. The picturesque harbor town complete with red striped lighthouse was like a scene from a postcard. Hopetown would be a great place to spend a vacation, with the beautiful Atlantic beach and protected harbor and just a short ferry ride to the other destinations in the so-called “Hub of Abaco.” We had a great time climbing the lighthouse and strolling through town. We also had to have a taste of a Vernon’s Grocery Store’s famous key lime pie, which was every bit as good as the guide books claimed.

I’m pretty sure I could go that low…but I wouldn’t be getting back up!

Next on our itinerary was Marsh Harbour, the third largest settlement in the Bahamas coming in at a whopping 5,000 permanent residents. While we wouldn’t consider this one of our favorite spots for visiting, it was fantastic to be able to get some chores done and find parts that would have been nearly impossible to get in other areas of the Bahamas. We did have a bit of a splurge night by attending the weekly BBQ buffet night at the Jib Room, complete with Bahama-style mariachi band and limbo performer (limbo-ist?). The food was good, the company fun, and we all had a great time.

We visited on a weekend, so the workers weren’t in the shop, but it was still fun to see the boats in progress.

The last point of the Hub’s triangle was Man-O-War Cay, a lovely town in which you can slow down. Because the island has a ban on the sale of alcohol, there are much fewer tourist establishments and no traditional beach bars. What they lack in party atmosphere, they more than make up for with the authentic feel of the community that has been mostly supported by their famous sail loft and boat workshop on the island. It was a great compliment to the other settlements in the Hub, especially after a few days of chores in Marsh Harbour.

Picturesque handmade boats were in abundance on Man-O-War Cay.

The Hub of Abaco was a completely new side to the Bahamas that we are glad we got to experience. While the area certainly can’t compete with the sheer intensity of natural beauty in the Exumas, it still has plenty of its own charm and flavor. The proximity of the destinations to each other makes it a perfect vacation destination or charter area and we would encourage anyone to give it a try if you haven’t before.

We were sad to see our time in the Exumas come to an end, but it was time.

We saw 49 knots on our wind meter when the storm passed through!

After a week of hiding out at Staniel Cay due to the Tropical Low that eventually became Tropical Storm Anna, we were going a little stir crazy to start moving again. Our buddy boat friends were moving on and we were close behind them. After a third visit to Warderick Wells Cay, we left the Exuma Land and Sea Park behind and made it to the famed Norman’s Cay, a former drug runner hideout and all together beautiful place.

Carter loved snorkeling the plane.

The coolest kid on the block!

A lonely plane crash on the inside cove of the island is a relic from the battle between the drug lords and the US Coast Guard; it also happens to be a great snorkeling spot. Carter is really getting the hang of snorkeling now and loved seeing the sunken plane! He also got some dinghy driving lessons from Dad, which he did very well at considering he can hardly see over the front of the dinghy from the driver’s seat.

Our special guest for dinner!

The perfect meal for our 500th mile!

Norman’s Cay marked 500 nautical miles traveled on Horizon and a grouper decided to stop by for our celebratory dinner! A candle-light (just because it was citronella doesn’t make it less special…) dinner of grilled grouper was just the right touch and one of our best meals aboard so far.

Thirteen pounds and 36 inches, a record we hope to beat in the future!

Our last stop in the Exuma Cays was at Ship’s Channel Cay, a great overnight stop before we would head out across the Middle Passage to Northern Eleuthera and the Abaco Islands. That night as I was tossing dinner scraps to the friendly remora under our boat, a huge Crevalle Jack decided he wanted a bite as well. Dan attempted to catch him for half an hour or so, but couldn’t get him to bite. After cleaning up, we accidentally left the pole in our rod holder and went to bed. At about 11 o’clock that night, we starting hearing the whirring of the reel and we both rushed out to discover he had finally gotten his bite! The half hour fight that ensued, chasing him around the boat with me holding the flashlight and Dan reeling him in, will certainly live on as a proper send off from the Exumas!

We loved the Exuma Islands and hope to return to visit again. Our first real cruising grounds will be hard to beat in our future travels.

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Where are we now?

About Us

We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.